#HIS STREAM WAS SO SHORT TODAY AND THERE WERE ABOUT TEN THOUSAND DEATH FLAGS

[54625]

Okay I'm officially Scared. What the fuck is Fit talking about. "Saturday is gonna be very interesting; I hope you're ready." I'm a senile old man FitMC you're risking my poor weak heart

[holyfuckthisfishcandrive]

Weak Synonyms (but maybe good enough)

Really wanted to write a nice fluffy Prinxiety short

Word count: 1417

The rain pattered against the window of the coffee shop and Roman stared out onto the grey streets.

The smell of black coffee filled the shop, fitting well to the weird melancholy the weather brought with it but he didn't order anything. He didn't feel like falling asleep here.

He glanced down at his phone and scrolled down but there were no new messages, at least not from anyone he cared about. Only from the extended family group chat that he'd been ignoring for the past few weeks but kew he wouldn't be able to much longer since Aunt Janna was about to adopt and if he didn't reply at least with a heart emoji and an 'Awwwww' to the flood of pictures she'd send he was running the risk of getting disowned immediatly.

He sighed.

With every minute that passed he felt more like the grey grey streets, the soggy clump of paper hanging in the drain just outside the shop and the statuue he could see further down the streets on which the rain looked like a stream of tears.

Suddenly the door burst open, the bell ringing wildly. Someone dropped their soaking umbrella into the stand by the door and slid into the booth across from him.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” Virgil wiped a few wet hairs out of his forehead. “I was going to take the car but Pat parked it in the wrong spot and the cops put a park claw on it and I had to go back and then I ran into our downstairs neighbour and she wouldn’t stop talking for like ten years. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Roman couldn’t help but smile at the sight of his boyfriend. “I didn’t wait for too long. Do you want to order anything?”

“I don’t know, do they have pancakes here?”

“Yeah, the strawberry pancakes are great! And the chocolate chip ones are good too,” Roman leaned his head on his hand, trying to keep himself from staring at Virgil.

“I think strawberry is more your thing so how about you take that and I take the chocolate. If you want of course.”

“Sounds great,” Roman nodded. “If you want you can try some of mine.”

Virgil smiled at him and it made Roman’s heart skip a beat.

“Can you order?” his smile turned slightly sheepish and he glanced at the servers nervously.

“No problem, Hot Topic!”

He flagged down one of the waiters, ordered their pancakes and hot chocolate.

Subtly he let his hand slip under the table and traced the box in his pocket. He glanced over at Virgil, wondering aloud how long the rain would last, and couldn’t help but question if he was doing the right thing.

Was this really the right time? Was it the right place? Or should he do it else where? A coffee shop wasn’t exactly the pinacle of romantic settings. Also Virgil didn’t like public attention. Oh god this was a bad idea, wasn’t it? Maybe he could do it at home later? But where they even at a point in their relationship where they could take this step? Was he moving too fast?

“-right?” Virgil half-smiled at him.

“I- uhm. What? Sorry, I wasn’t- I was kinda lost in thought. Sorry.”

“Did you forget your meds today?”

“I ran out. And forgot to renew the perscription. Sorry.”

“It’s fine. I was just saying that we should probably go to oyur place instead of mine later since it’s closer. And if you want I can remind you to get it renewed monday and like help you start.”

“Thanks, my dark and stormy knight. And yeah, your right. Remus is out tonight too so we’ll have the place to ourselves,” Roman tried not to think about how good of an opportunity that would be.

The server brought their drinks and a few minutes later the pancakes.

“Enjoy your meal!” they gave a customer service smile.

“Thanks,” Roman responded.

“You too,” Virgil said and immediatly ducked deeeper into his hoodie.

The server didn’t react, already heading towards some other table and Virgil groaned miserably.

“I’m a fool,” he muttered.

“Would you like a bit of strawberry pancake to help you through your misery, death cab for cutie?” Roman offered his fork with a small bite, having made sure to get a strawberry piece on it.

“Thanks, Princey,” Virgil leaned forward and Roman found himself staring as he wrapped his lips around the fork and leaned back again. “It’s really good.”

“I know, right?”

“Do you want some of mine too?” Virgil offered him his fork in turn and Roman took it quickly.

“Mhm, this one is really good too.”

Virgil smiled back at him.

“You wanted to audition for that new play, right? Midsommers dream, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah!” Roman nodded. “I haven’t heard back yet though. I hope I get the part. It’s a fun play.”

“What’s it about?” Virgil asked taking a bite of his own pancake.

Roman began describing the story, jumping around a little in the plotline from time to time. He went on with the other plays the theatre group had considered to put on this year and by the time he was done their plates and cups were emptied.

Virgil was watching him with an easy smile, a dreamy look in his eyes that Roman sometimes couldn’t believe he deserved to receive.

“We should probably get home soon,” he suggested. “I’ll pay.”

“Oh, no no no! You paid last time. It’s my turn,” Virgill protested already pulling out his portmonee.

Roman rolled his eyes. “It’s no trouble, Virgil. I can pay.”

“Well, you’re not going to.”

“Fine, fine. But I’ll pay next time.”

Roman flagged down the server again, let Virgil pay and they left the shop, huddled together under Virgil’s umbrella.

Roman began huming under his breath.

Virgil shot him a look, silently asking “What song is that?”.

“I’m singing in the rain~”

Virgil chuckled.

“Just singing in the rain, what a glorious feelin’~” Roman continued and spun Virgil in a circle, not really caring that he got a little wet. “I’m happy again, I’m laughing at clouds~”

Virgil closed the umbrella and let himself be pulled into a dance as Roman contionued the song. He only sand along during the chorus.

They danced past street lamps and signs, shops and alley ways until Roman breathlessly finished and melted against his boyfriend, still laughing.

For a while they stood there, catching their breath and giggling in a strange euphoria.

“I love you,” Virgil whispered, barely audible over the pitter-patter of the rain.

“I love you too.”

“I love you so much. I don’t think I know any words for how much. Or how badly. Just... weak synonyms.”

“Like what?”

“Like... Will you marry me?”

Roman lifted his head from Virgil’s shoulder and his eyes loked onto the gold band in Virgil’s hand. It was fairly simple, a small red gem on the top.

“What?” his brain reeling.

“Will you... marry... me.”

Laugher bubbled up Roman’s throat and out before he could stop it and Virgil’s face fell.

“Sorry,” he immediatly pulled back. “That was stupid of me-”

“No, no! That’s not why I’m laughing! See?” he reached into his pocket pulling out the small box and opened it.

The ring in it was silver. Because Virgil perferred silver jewlery to gold. The gem on it was black and had a shine to it even in the dim light.

Virgil stared at it.

“You-?”

He stopped.

“You wanted to too?”

Roman smiled.

“Yeah, I wanted to propose tonight,” he chuckled. “How dare you steal my thunder. You know how I love my dramatics,” he added jokingly.

Virgil huffed out a quiet laugh.

“I’m guessing that’s a yes?”

“Yes! Oh, yes, yes, a thousand times, yes!” he laughed.

Virgil fumbled to put the ring on him with cold fingers and Roman trying to put his ring on at the same time, both laughing breathlessly.

“Gosh, we’re completely soaked,” Virgil siad past pearls of laughter.

They stumbled up the stairs to Roman’s apartment and he struggled with the key for a little until he managed to open it.

They dropped their clothes, save for underwear, in the bathtub, wrapped themselfves up in towels and crammed onto the loveseat, far closer than they strictly had too.

Romn couldn’t stop smiling as he gently combed through Virgil’s hair, his ring glinting in the light of the street lantern shining in through the window.

[celticfeather]

Chapter 1: Dawn

Chapter 6 Below

-Uchiha Itachi-

"Itachi, wake up."

"Itachi."

Itachi opened his eyes and regarded his partner calmly. The first thing he saw was Kisame retracting a guilty hand, and a bluish eyebrow twitched. "Did you have trouble sleeping?"

Apparently he had overslept.

"The nights in this country are short," Itachi said.

Kisame looked over at the rising sun over the waves. It was already two hours high. But the mist-ninja said nothing.

Gulls wheeled as the pair trekked along the sand. They walked in the wetness where their footprints were quickly erased by the swiping glasslike waves.

"Finally!" A voice behind them said.

The disturbance's whining tone signaled no threat and dually annoyed Itachi. Zetsu had risen from the dunegrass, grains of white quartzite sand rivuletting down the creases in his leafed crest. Itachi did not particularly like Zetsu: it was some kind of association that the plant-ninja always brought bad news.

"About time we found you two!" the white half exclaimed. "I can't see or hear well through the ocean."

Zetsu could not spy as efficiently underwater or at beaches. Itachi filed the information for later use.

"Pain requests you meet at a cave on the eastern bank of Rido Lake, in the Land of Rivers, five days from today,' he said matter of factly.

Itachi and Kisame looked at each other.

Zetsu continued excitedly. "It's a doosie, the whole gang is invited! Well, I'll give you a hint. We're going on a Tailed Beast Hunt!"

Kisame raised an eyebrow. "Tailed Beast Hunt?"

"Yes! Don't be late! Five days, Rido Lake, at noon!"

The plant-ninja seeped back into the earth. Itachi always found Zetsu's rare locomotion an anomaly. But Itachi supposed even his own powers, logical to him, looked enviously strange from the outside.

"Know anything about tailed beasts?" Kisame asked.

"The Nine Tailed Fox attacked my village when I was five. It destroyed the Uchiha complex and killed the Hokage...They sealed it in a child."

"The Mist's Tailed Beast has been missing since the death of the Mizukage."

"Hm," Itachi said. The hunt must be no small feat if the other teams were enlisted for the same task. At least, according to Zetsu, they had some days for themselves before they needed to report. Itachi was mildly curious of the mission, but not enthusiastic.

"Do we need to do anything before then?" Kisame asked.

Like say goodbye to friends and family? With a silent glance at the eastern sun, Itachi discerned their orientation, and led them in the direction of the Land of Rivers, a several days' walk away.

"It would be faster if we cut across the gulf."

"I can neither run nor swim a gulf."

"I'm not convinced you can swim at all."

The two ninja traveled a quiet day through the small countries. It was the custom of outlaws to make their routes through the disorganized and impoverished ring of states outside the great nations. These strapped militias did not track killers so long as they wandered peaceably.

As they walked along a path, the bisected village was freshly burned. A miasma of death, fine as silt and equally pervasive, clogged the air. A battlefield passed them by, and narrow flags streamed from spear points embedded in earth and armor.

"Looks like a civil war."

"Or a blood feud."

Hopping crows scattered before the two rogues. Most of the corpses wore old fashioned layered armor and carried swords. Like the Uchiha and Senju, he thought. But he doubted any were above genin in this battle.

He turned one of the soldiers over. It rolled too light in its iron shell, a woman, or a boy. A boy. Itachi searched him, but found only copper, and he left it. He did this to three other corpses, but found no food, only money.

"You check for threats. I'll search for anything useful," Itachi said, and Kisame disappeared.

Itachi stole suspicious and warily into the hamlet, a habit he could not shake despite the lack of threat. The thatch from the houses was half burned, and the village's inhabitants were dead or fled. He pushed open a garden gate.

Twisted in old rebellion against the dry summer grasses, gnarled black tree trunks reached towards the sky. His eyes flitted hopefully through the ravaged orchard like a songbird. Too high for even the lightest village children, a few orange persimmon fruits dotted the canopy.

With a flighting leap he landed on a tree's fork, picked the ripest fruit, and with his watchful eyes flashing left and right, he sank his teeth into the water-soft flesh. Persimmons were sweet and fibrous and very healthy. Life with Kisame had him eating a lot of meat. A hooded crow alighted on a nearby branch to observe him. He considered offering the bird a slice, before realizing it had ample preferable options.

The hamlet appeared abandoned from his vantage, and Kisame had made himself invisible. Itachi continued to explore the hamlet, but found little in the way of life or clues. The little crow followed him. An emaciated pig lay dead in a nearby pen. Kisame would like that. The patient crow watched him open the carcass and a squawk summoned her friends.

He walked into the mostly-intact adjacent hut with the pork balanced gingerly between his hands. The abandoned one-room house displayed a traditional kitchen: a pile of coals inset in a square hole in the center of the tatami floor. He might not be better at catching fish than Kisame, -no he was still probably better at fishing than Kisame- but he was definitely a better cook. With the pork fillet, soy sauce, peppercorns and herbs he found around the property, he practiced his art over a dead family's hearth. Kisame stepped through the threshold some time later.

"No one is here but some corpse robbers, who are hiding from us about a quarter kilometer away."

"How respectful of them," Itachi noted.

Kisame grunted. Itachi gestured for Kisame to sit opposite him as he continued to cook. Kisame's eyes traced out the window at the carnage, and he released an abandoned laugh.

"Reminds me of my teenage years.

Itachi followed his gaze. "Indeed."

The oppressive silence of dead men blanketed them. As the coal-fire stoked, the hut they sat in was empty from any laughter it had days ago. The universe had conspired to put two ruthless killers into a village that now offered no one to kill. The Akatsuki had always killed and left. Now Itachi would see what he created.

No. He spared the Leaf from this.

"The Eye of the Moon will end this excess," Kisame said soberly from across the coals.

"We'll find no satisfaction in illusion."

Kisame twitched his lip in a tight smile, unexpected to have lured Itachi to finally spar.

"How can you be sure that your belief that reality is superior to fiction, is itself not false?" Kisame's posed.

"Because I weave fiction."

Itachi had authored his ideal life once, right before he killed his clan.

He had cast Tsukuyomi on his… what was she? Izumi. He wove them a fiction of their life together, of having children, growing old and dying. And he remembered, for a few seconds that lasted her seventy years, she was happy. But through the whole thing he'd felt the unimaginable sense of dread that came with knowing he was in a dream. A few seconds later, Izumi's flesh was as broken as her mind was. And Itachi was broken in a new way too.

"I can show you," Itachi said. He hadn't meant it to be a threat but maybe it sounded like one. "What the Tsukuyomi is like."

A pause. "Don't."

Itachi let the conversation end. Kisame seemed most purposed in his whole life serving the Akatsuki. But to Itachi, his hunted years spent under red clouds was no life. He remembered no moments in the last four years where he was not either fleeing, hungry, hurt, exhausted, or lonely.

Or maybe this was normal and just came with being his age. He read that people his age needed more food and sleep. He had no one to ask. He looked at Kisame, but he decided not to.

The sweet, peppery scent of shogayaki goaded his hunger. His eyes flickered to Kisame; it probably smelled even better to him. Quietly proud of his wartime creation, he began to serve Kisame a proportionally larger serving to his own.

Kisame's fingertips interrupted his offering. "You eat it."

Itachi narrowed his eyes. For two days now he had not seen Kisame eat, on their lifestyle which burned tens of thousands of calories daily.

"There is an entire boar, already dead," Itachi reiterated.

"You're scrawny and should eat more."

He had never been spoken to that way. Silent in his irritation, Itachi ate. Kisame was an adult and a soldier, and would not die by starving himself.

Itachi's annoyance soured the food, and he had prepared enough for two Kisames. It was impossible for a single person his size to consume, and Itachi never liked overeating, especially in hostile territory.

"I can't eat all of this."

"What do you want me to do about it?"

"Do as you like."

He heard a small exhale from Kisame.

"Pork, it tastes too much like…" Kisame shook his head.

Perhaps he should have expected this. Itachi was suddenly uneasy with Kisame's candidness, when Itachi had been willing to bury the other day's incident. He worried he had been rude. He set his knife on the wood and stood. "Come with me."

Hesitant, Kisame followed him. Itachi halted before the orchard, the black-barked and scarcely-leafed persimmon trees stretching like dead fingers to the sky.

"I didn't think you ate fruit." Itachi explained the omittance. It seemed a ridiculous assumption now.

Itachi watched his partner's back as he walked forward, lit by the pink ash-hazed sun. He tried to focus on Kisame, or on the sunset, for if his gaze wandered, he would see the distance was fecund with death.

"Yo!"

Their eyes locked on the noise. Like a monkey from a tree branch, Tobi hung upside down from a permission limb. He completed his flip and landed sprightly on the earth to trot towards the two men.

Itachi and Kisame had the senses of beasts. No human could sneak up on them while they were awake. It was like the man had materialized from ash and smoke.

"Hi Kisame! Itachi! I thought of you, you know, and I knew I had to find you! Come see, Tachi! I found this toad that totally looks like you!"

Tobi had taken Itachi's arm and started pulling him in some direction. Itachi looked back at Kisame for something, —-he didn't know— for explanation, for sympathy, for help.

Itachi felt himself being sucked in somewhere, transported somewhere dark, then moved again back to the human world. Kisame and the ash were gone. Itachi and the spiral-masked man faced each other in a grassy plain.

The red eye through the mask was narrow, the aura menacing.

"I let slide your insubordination at the brothel. But discrediting the Eye of the Moon to Kisame is a new level of idiocy."

Fear's icy brine chilled Itachi's veins. Lowering his act even slightly to Kisame had been a deadly mistake.

"Kisame is still in full support of the Eye of the Moon," Itachi said.

The lie to shield his partner flowed smooth as silk before Madara. But he realized then its plausibility. In mentioning the Eye of the Moon, Kisame had baited and strung Itachi as deftly as he would a catfish, and thrown him to an even bigger beast.

Madara made a dismissive, subvocal noise. "Do you remember our agreement from that long night?"

"You kill the Uchiha police force and don't harm the Leaf. I help you in the Akatsuki."

"It's a pact you'll only escape when one of us is dead. Too bad for you and the Leaf, you'll die first."

Itachi lit Amaterasu then. The inferno feasted on Madara's clothes, he smelled it roast his skin, and the elder Uchiha screamed and cursed, and he disappeared in a swirl. Itachi did not know what the retreat meant, but he did not think the incident was over, so he fled for the forest.

Moments later Madara appeared on a tree branch in front of him, unflamed. Itachi kept running. This was not Itachi's first dance with a teleporter— and he knew to deal with them better than most.

The bait untaken, Madara disappeared again.

Then Madara phased centimeters in front of him. Itachi should have crashed into him, but there was no collision, rather Itachi suddenly found himself cut around the waist by a chain. Madara viced it taught around him and smashed Itachi to a tree trunk.

"Pain was never the one you needed to worry about."

Terrified and adrenalized, Itachi zapped him again with the Amaterasu. Madara swore and disappeared. Exhausted and half blind, Itachi's trembling fingers started to untie himself.

Madara returned and kicked the chained man in the stomach. "That again?"

Itachi recovered and stared at him wrathfully. Madara's only eye was shadowed by the mask, and Itachi could not establish the contact he needed for Tsukuyomi.

"Each user of the Mangekyou has one ability for each eye. Yours are the black flames, Amaterasu, and the nightmare realm, Tsukuyomi, right?"

"Take your mask off," Itachi breathed.

"I've been meaning to teach you something for a while. You buried the knowledge of Indra's clan when you killed them. They were weak, but the eldest Uchiha knew the old paths, even if they could not climb them. And orphaned, you now need instruction in using our highest gifts." Madara's voice had adopted a helpful tone.

"I want none of the knowledge that has poisoned you."

Itachi said it, but he wasn't sure he was so noble. Beneath his fear was the instinct to collect advantages. He had learned long ago to enact what sin justice demanded.

"There's a third ability that everyone with two mangekyou has. You have the eyes, but there's a nose. How's your knowledge of religion, Itachi?"

"Very well."

"Good. Then you know already what we call him."

Their eyes locked. A hypnotic heartbeat passed in synchrony.

The air cracked with chakra and the space around Madara hazed cobalt blue. Itachi's lips parted in disbelief. A huge skeleton formed around Madara, which lengthened as it became threaded with corded muscles, skin, and at last armor. A huge blue, astral samurai.

Madara spoke. "Amaterasu emerges through grief. Tsukuyomi through fear. Susanoo is a wrathful god, and his likeness is unlocked by hate."

Quick as a whip, the Susanoo lifted Itachi, its hand covered his eyes and twisted his neck like a bird, and the other crushed him until his ribs cracked. Itachi screamed, and his lungs filled with blood, and he felt his spine compressing, and he knew he would soon die. But above the pain, above it all, he hated the man before him. He wanted Madara dead. He wanted to flay the skin off him. He wanted to rend him full of nightmares, stab him through the tsukuyomi, and burn his corpse. Because if Madara didn't control the fox, he would not be in the Akatsuki, the scorned Uchiha would not have revolted, and everyone he had loved would be alive.

And at last Itachi's cracking ribs ceased. His body was wracked with pain, but he could breathe. The air tasted ozone and electric. He could just barely see that red bars of chakra, like a ribcage, had formed around his own body in protection. Madara's susanoo released him.

"I need you alive for something, for now. This ethical streak, however... I'll rub that out soon enough."

He dared the hateful glare of a man who could not stand at Madara. "I'll soak the earth with your guts."

A laugh. "Good progress."

The blur shaped like Madara admired the fallen Uchiha a moment more; in Itachi's imagination he was smug. Madara disappeared in a silent vortex from his right eye. Maybe Itachi had played into Madara's hands, but they both had what they wanted. Itachi had knowledge, and he was not dead. Itachi's fiery ribs extinguished with the threat, and he collapsed to bleed his life unto the ungrateful earth.

Author's Note:

Apologies for the wait on this one, folks. Thanks very much to beta SilverLion for her help!

See you next time,

Kelto

[godlessgeekblog]

How to plan a family D-Day weekend in Normandy

The flags are going up, the mowers are out and the cafe owners are stocking up on beer and cider — as they always do ahead of June 6 every year.

The anniversary of D-Day stirs powerful mixed emotions here in Normandy. It is both a celebration of the liberation of Europe — which began that day — and a commemoration of those who fell here in the pivotal summer of 1944.

This year, though, will be particularly poignant because the 75th anniversary is likely to be the last occasion when the veterans return in significant numbers. And because royalty and world leaders will be joining them, anyone without a ticket will want to stay well clear of the French coast between Cherbourg and Ouistreham during the week of June 3.

The Daily Mail’s Robert Hardman devised a three-day itinerary to see all the main D-Day beaches and memorials 

On any other day, this part of the world is not merely worth a visit. It is an enthralling, humbling experience which should be high on anyone’s ‘to do’ list. And you do not have to be a military history buff to enjoy it.

In the run-up to this year’s events, I took my family for a long weekend and the only problem was cramming it all in to a few days.

For the Battle of Normandy was not just about getting ashore. The ‘beaches’ were actually a 50-mile stretch of coast — and the battle itself lasted nearly three months. As a result, there are enough museums, ruins and landmarks to keep you occupied for weeks. I have been back here time and again over the years and there is always something new to see or do. So how best to get the full picture?

With three children aged between seven and 11, I wanted to make sure they all went home with a story to tell and a rough idea of what happened 75 years ago.

We based ourselves in the small city of Bayeux, with its charming streets and half-timbered cafes, and this is how we did it . . .

Day One:

The British-Canadian Sector

Sword Beach, where British troops landed during D-Day operations. The beach is in the town of Ouistreham in Normandy 

The Normandy landings were divided into five zones which history has come to know as ‘the beaches’. To the west are the two vast stretches where the Americans landed — codenamed Utah and Omaha. 

To the east are the two British ones — Gold and Sword — either side of the Canadian landing zone, codenamed Juno. 

Since the Brittany Ferries service from Portsmouth sails in to Ouistreham, on the edge of Sword Beach, you might want to start here.

Start at: Pegasus Bridge

The first piece of France to be liberated from Nazi rule was not a beach at all. It was a crucial metal bridge over the Caen Ship Canal several miles inland from Sword Beach.

Shortly after midnight on June 6, three gliders carrying crack troops from the Ox and Bucks Light Infantry landed in precisely the right spot and captured the bridge intact. It has been known ever since as Pegasus Bridge (after the badge of the airborne forces) and here you will find the Pegasus Memorial. This first-rate museum tells the story of the army of liberators who came by air.

Donations from veterans and their families ensure there is a steady stream of fresh exhibits. An entire glider door had just turned up when we arrived. A new bridge spans the canal so the original — still sporting its battle scars — sits in the museum’s garden, along with a replica glider and a beautifully restored Cromwell tank.

Take a short trip up the road to the Commonwealth War Cemetery at Ranville, where more than 2,000 men lie buried next to a village church that’s still peppered with bullet holes.

Juno Beach Centre

Onwards to Canada’s museum at Juno Beach. On D-Day, no nation advanced further than the gallant Canadians yet their achievements are often overlooked. Not here, though. The full extent of the country’s war effort is captured in a series of well-planned exhibitions, along with a digital tour which kept my lot captivated for an hour and a half.

‘Best museum of them all,’ was the verdict of my eldest. It’s right on the beach, next to a German bunker complex. A good paddling opportunity.

Bringing history to life: Robert and his family enjoyed an educational holiday in Normandy 

VC Memorial

Grab some lunch nearby and head for Crépon, passing Ver-sur-Mer where the splendid new Normandy Memorial is taking shape with the help of the generosity of Daily Mail readers.

Five minutes away is the roadside monument telling the heroic tale of Sergeant Major Stan Hollis of the Green Howards, the only man to win the Victoria Cross on D-Day itself.

Gripping film footage

Another ten minutes down the road and you reach the clifftop cinema above the handsome old spa town of Arromanches-les-Bains. The view is superb. Ditto the 360-degree cinema experience which uses surround sound and news footage from the time to tell the whole story of Normandy in 20 minutes. Its powerful footage had even our seven-year-old glued.

Longues Battery

The gun battery at Longues-sur-Mer. You can climb inside the gun casemates and children will enjoy clambering over the original guns

HELP HONOUR OUR HEROES  

There is still no memorial on French soil to the 22,442 British servicemen and women who died in the Battle of Normandy. Now, thanks to the efforts of the surviving veterans and Mail readers, this magnificent monument, above, and memorial park will open above Gold Beach next year. Donations to the Normandy Memorial Trust at 56 Warwick Square, London SW1V 2AJ or normandymemorialtrust.org. 

Skirt round Arromanches and head for the gun battery at Longues-sur-Mer, still in remarkably good nick considering that it was bombarded comprehensively by the RAF before it was silenced by the Royal Navy.

You can climb inside the gun casemates and children will enjoy clambering over the original guns. Equally impressive is the forward observation bunker, still perched on the cliff edge. It is the one they used to film the epic Hollywood movie, The Longest Day, and has barely changed since 1944.

Double back to Arromanches for a drink as the sun sets beyond the remains of the Mulberry harbour. This was the mind-boggling artificial port which the Allies towed across the Channel at a sedate 1 mph. These mighty blocks of seaweed-encrusted concrete are now much-loved landmarks. The busy museum on the seafront tells the story.

Day Two

The American Sector

Of the 156,000 troops who landed on D-Day, 73,000 were American, as was the Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight Eisenhower. The U.S. forces were allocated the western half of the assault. Their initial aims included the capture of the vital port of Cherbourg.

Start at: St-Mere-Eglise

Like the British airborne forces who arrived to the east in the early hours of D-Day, thousands of Americans dropped in to the west.

Famously, one unit of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division landed in the town of Sainte-Mere-Eglise while a house was on fire, illuminating the night sky. Many paratroopers were picked off before touching the ground.

A wounded Private John Steele ended up dangling from the church by his parachute and feigned death until he was lowered down and taken prisoner (though not for long).

His story has entered Normandy folklore and, to this day, a dummy paratrooper still hangs from the church — much to the delight of my children. Across the square, the U.S. Airborne Museum is full of interactive displays and each visitor receives a tablet to follow the action.

Utah Beach

Half an hour’s drive further on, the Utah Beach Museum is an excellent state-of-the-art visitor centre built into the sand on the site of a German bunker.

There is a wide selection of landing craft — including a replica Higgins Boat — and a B-26 Marauder bomber, all telling the story of a beach landing which went more or less according to plan.

The beach of Arromanches where you can also find a 360-degree cinema experience, which uses surround sound and news footage from the time to tell the whole story of Normandy in 20 minutes

It is also the perfect spot for some well-deserved bucket-and-spade activity. It is a short hop to Saint-Come-du-Mont where the D-Day Experience gives visitors a lively simulated ride in an American C47 aircraft as it flies U.S. paratroopers into the unknown.

Omaha Beach

While Utah was a success, the other American landing beach was a killing field. Forever known as ‘Bloody Omaha’, it was where thousands of men lost their lives.

Well-entrenched German positions survived aerial bombing and poured withering fire on the attackers. Today, Omaha Beach is a bracing strip of golden sand, popular with land yachts (sail-powered go-karts).

Above it is the main U.S. Cemetery, a panoramic resting place for nearly 10,000 men (and four women) which will be familiar to viewers of the Steven Spielberg epic Saving Private Ryan. The film was inspired by the story of one U.S. family, the Nilands, who lost two boys in Normandy. There are, in fact, 45 pairs of brothers resting here.

Arrive towards the end of the day and watch the sunset ceremony — known as ‘Taps’ — bring down the two main Stars and Stripes. I counted hundreds of visitors, many of them in tears. A new visitor centre opens this summer.

British cemetery

The beautiful maintained plots in the main British cemetery in Bayeux, pictured, where more than 4,000 Commonwealth soldiers lie 

Britain’s fallen heroes are to be found in beautifully maintained plots across the region. Head back to Bayeux and visit the main British cemetery where more than 4,000 Commonwealth (and 466 German) soldiers lie, including a holder of the Victoria Cross, Sidney Bates of the Royal Norfolk Regiment.

Day Three

Bayeux, Caen and Inland

Half an hour away from Bayeux the regional capital, Caen — which was bombed to smithereens in 1944 — has a huge museum telling the story of the war from the French side, a sombre reminder that there were even more civilian than military losses here.

German last stand

The battle for the beaches was relatively quick. Most of the fighting was inland, among pretty medieval hedgerows known as ‘bocage’. Small memorials pepper the landscape. Head an hour south of Caen to the bloodiest battlefield of all. At the end of the Normandy campaign, tens of thousands of German troops were squeezed in to a narrow strip of countryside known as the Falaise Pocket. Up to 10,000 were killed here.

The Memorial Montormel museum, run by a charismatic English-speaking curator, is the perfect spot to take in the magnitude of what happened in the now-peaceful valley below. Much is made of the role of horses in the German war machine. Their fate is not so easily explained to young pony-lovers.

My three children learned a lot and played a lot. But I made the mistake of buying them each a replica ‘cricket’, the metallic clicker used by airborne troops to identify friendly forces at night. They have not stopped clicking the blasted things ever since.

TRAVEL FACTS 

Robert Hardman and his family travelled overnight from Portsmouth to Caen/Ouistreham by cruise-ferry in an en-suite cabin. Fares from £85 one way for a car, plus two passengers, brittany-ferries.co.uk. The Hotel Luxembourg in Bayeux has family rooms from £137 (hotel-luxembourg-bayeux.com) For more information on commemorating D-Day 75, visit normandydday75.com 

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Maximum Internet Marketing

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Maximum Internet Marketing

If you’ve spent any time in the trenches of internet marketing over the past few years, you know precisely what I’m talking about: Those out-of-the-park grand slams are fewer and farther between these days.

Once upon a time, you could just blast an offer – almost any offer – to your customer file or even ice-cold prospect names, then sit back and watch an avalanche of orders come pouring in.

The money was amazing: When one of my clients e-mailed a single note to his 35,000 customers back in the mid-1990s, he raked in $12 million in less than a week My Amend.

Ah … the GOOD old days!

Today, that client would kill to get those kinds of results. Like most internet marketers today, he’s working harder and profiting less. Much less.

Why is web marketing getting so much tougher?

It should be obvious: When web-based marketing was new – and still relatively rare – just about every one of your prospects and customers read every word of every promotion you sent them.

But these days, even e-mailed sales messages I want to receive are lost among the scores of slimy junk messages that slither into my inbox (while I wrote the above sentence, e-mails from TWO different Viagra companies arrived. No kidding!).

And while all that junk is still finding its way through, overly aggressive spam filters are not only blocking promotional e-mails I’ve asked to receive – they’re even trashing non-commercial e-mails to and from my family, friends and clients!

And even all that’s just the tip of the iceberg: The entire internet is awash with ads. Try to get a report from Weather.Com, or check the stock market on Big Charts: Pop-ups and pop-unders galore!

“It’s like deja vu’ — all over again!”

— Yogi Berra

It was bound to happen. Since the dawn of time, every new marketing innovation and medium to come down the pike has gone through the same response cycle:

Phase #1 — Advent: A small handful of innovative businesses and marketers discover a new advertising medium or technique that proves to be far superior to traditional methods – advertisers’ return on investment (ROI) skyrockets … Phase #2 — Proliferation: Hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands of businesses and marketers discover the secret and begin using it — ROI begins to flag …

Phase #3 — Saturation: The novelty wears off … consumers, besieged by advertising messages begin tuning out — ROI begins to decline …

Phase #4 — Maturity: With its novelty spent and ROI falling, the once-vastly-superior new medium or technique eventually takes its place as an equal among many in the advertiser’s arsenal.

Today, we are clearly in Phase Three of the internet marketing explosion: The saturation phase. In just about every industry and product area you can name, open rates, click-through rates, response rates – and most importantly, ROIs ��� have peaked and are beginning to decline. The days when you could sleepwalk through your web-based promotions with lousy, hastily written sales copy, unbelievable product claims and beyond-the-pale pricing strategies are vanishing fast. That doesn’t mean web-based marketing is dying. Not by a long shot. Well-conceived, well-crafted, well-executed web marketing can still make you rich beyond dreams of avarice.

But web-based marketing is maturing. And to generate maximum response and ROI in this environment, it’s becoming increasingly important to make sure that your marketing strategy, your sales copy and your offer are razor sharp.

It also means that the internet is quickly becoming recognized for what it really was all along – one of many media through which marketers attract new customers and make their sales.

Here’s how thinking about the internet in this new light

recently made a favorite client $5 million richer in just 5 weeks …

Several months ago, one of my favorite clients asked me to create a web-based promotion for a new investment advisory. The service would give daily mutual fund trading advice to investors for the princely sum of about $1,000 per year.

… So instead of beginning with a series of e-mails or even a new web page (as my client requested), I promptly sat down and wrote a 24-page DIRECT MAIL package.

It’s not that I’m contrary by nature – I just had a better idea …

My client had been blasting several sales promotions for other products to his customers every weekday via e-mail, and had been doing it for years. And predictably, response to those promotions had crashed to less than one-tenth of what he had been getting years earlier.

My goal: To do everything possible to make this promotion the exception – to boost response rates and ROI by an order of magnitude.

My strategy: To establish the new $1,000 product in prospects’ minds as being head and shoulders above every other product my client had ever offered them. To do that, I would demonstrate the uniqueness and superiority of this new product – and create emotional momentum for it — by making its introduction a gala event.

My tactic: Use every medium available to me over a 5-week period – beginning with the cheapest avenues and proceeding step-by-step to ever-costlier ones — to sell the maximum number of subscriptions possible with a positive ROI.

That would require much more copy than the client usually produced for an e-mail promotion – but it would be worth it.

And beginning by writing long copy – copy containing every benefit, every credibility element, every reason why the prospect should buy the service — would be the best way to make sure that the strongest sales copy available appeared in every contact with our prospects.

Once the long copy was finished, the rest would be easy: I would simply excerpt it over and over again to create my multi-step campaign …

STEP #1 — Pick the low-hanging fruit – cheap: A respectable chunk of my client’s customers love him to death and will buy just about any product he recommends. For these wonderful customers, I created an extremely low-cost, multi-step e-mail campaign: A series of short, daily blasts announcing the new product and the reasons why the customer should jump on board right away … re-announcing the new product … asking them why we hadn’t heard from them, etc.

Important point: The e-mail medium itself is, in a very real way, a big part of the message. By its very nature – the fact that it is an instant communication — the e-mail medium screams “urgency!”

And it also raises key questions in your prospect’s mind: “Why is this communication urgent? … “Is it because you urgently need to sell me something? … “Or is because I urgently need a piece of information in order to bring value to my life?”

If my prospects perceived that my e-mail messages were just crass attempts to sell them something, my e-mails might be instantly deleted. If on the other hand, my e-mails were perceived as a timely and sincere offering to help the recipient in some way, my sales message would be far more likely to be read and responded to.

And so, for urgency and readership, began each e-mail with valuable information or advice relating to a fast-breaking piece of news from the investment world. The subject line and opening copy of each blast was new each day – as fresh as each day’s headlines – and rewarded prospects for reading my sales message.

Next, I made the connection between the breaking news and the new investment service – and demonstrated how the service could use this new event to generate huge profits for the reader in the days ahead.

And finally, I inserted copy justifying my price and asking for the order.

RESULT: A constant stream of $1,000 orders poured in from these e-mails every day for five, full weeks.

STEP #2 – Get fence-sitters to a “tipping point” website: While a significant group of loyal customers could be counted on to buy in response to a short e-mail, I reasoned that the short copy would leave at least 90% of my prospects sitting on the fence. To sell them, I’d need longer copy – more reasons to buy now – than could be presented in a five or six-paragraph e-mail.

To tip these prospects off of their perch, I used about half the long direct mail copy I had written about the product (12 pages, of 12pt. type, single spaced), to create an “Urgent Special Report” on-line: A small, cheap website. And in week #2 of my campaign, I began sending e-mails to the client’s customers urging them to click a link in order to read the free report immediately.

RESULT: Order volume increased dramatically as a significant number of my client’s customers responded to the simple website.

STEP #3 — Exploit other low-cost or free media: While my client’s web-based products were extremely successful, he also client published and mails a monthly print newsletter to some 120,000 active subscribers every month.

Taking my client’s urgent recommendation to his customers in print would position this new product in my prospects’ minds as being something special – not just another run-of-the-mill product promoted exclusively on the internet.

So, I simply took the 12-pages of copy from the little website I’d created … wrote a new headline and opening copy … turned it into a printed special report … and had it inserted in the next issue of my client’s print newsletter.

At the same time, I tasked the client’s operators to include a pitch for the product on all in-bound phone calls from customers.

And I included an insert offering the free on-line report in our outbound welcome packages that new subscribers received.

RESULT: Once again, sales spiked nicely.

STEP #4 — Show up where they least expect you to: Two weeks after the newsletter insert hit my prospects’ mail boxes, I hit them again – with the full 24-page direct mail package I had initially created to promote the product, formatted as a free special report or “thank-you” bonus for loyal customers.

After years of receiving ONLY e-mail promotions for these high-priced trading services, my prospect suddenly realized that this must really be different – and therefore better than – anything my client had recommended before.

Reasoning that anyone who hadn’t bought probably hadn’t read past the headline and lead-in copy, I made sure the first three pages or so were fresh. Beyond that, the copy was pretty much unchanged.

RESULT: Money was positively rolling in.

STEP #5 – I get tenacious: Two weeks after the 24-pager hit their mail boxes, we stuffed it into an envelope, added a one-page letter from my client asking, “Why haven’t I heard from you?” and dropped it into the mail. Again – the phone rang off the hook.

The final result: The combined effect of e-mail, the website, the inserts in the print newsletter and two direct mailings had a multiplying effect on response. When the dust had settled, our multi-channel marketing campaign had sold more than $5 million-worth of subscriptions to the new service in just five weeks – about five times more than we would have sold with through e-mail promotion alone!

Lessons learned …

Thinking about e-mail marketing and the mini-website as merely two of the marketing channels available to you forces you to think about other low-cost ways to deliver your sales message and position your product as being head and shoulders above all the others your prospects have seen. Picking the low-hanging fruit on a house file with ultra-cheap e-mail campaigns first is a smart way to get the ball rolling. But adding promotions in other media — the newsletter inserts, direct mail packages, welcome package inserts, inbound telemarketing scripts – can make hundreds of sales that are normally lost with web-based marketing alone. Compelling “reason-why” sales copy at every step of each campaign is absolutely essential for maximizing response, minimizing cost per sale and sent ROI soaring at every step of your on-line marketing process. Use anything less than the strongest sales copy that could possibly be written means you’re leaving big bucks on the table. Take a lesson from history … The first print ad in an American newspaper made its debut in 1704. The ad itself was primitive by today’s standards, but since it was a novelty, my guess is that 100% of the folks who saw it, read it, and many responded.

In the twinkling of an eye, every newspaper in the land was packed with ads, and savvy publishers like Ben Franklin even began creating magazines and other publications for the express purpose of selling advertising.

Before long – predictably — Americans were overwhelmed with ads — and readership and response were plummeting. So a handful of alarmed but savvy advertisers went to work to find ways to lift their ads head and shoulders above the clutter, and GET THEM READ!

In 1880, John Wannamaker hired John E. Powers – as far as I can tell, the world’s first professional copywriter — to promote his store’s products. In 1904, Albert Lasker and John E. Kennedy overcame reader apathy by introducing the notion of advertising as “salesmanship in print.” A few years later, Claude Hopkins introduced the notion that, for maximum readership, every ad should be filled with “reasons why” prospects should buy the advertised product. And for the last 100 years, a long line of great advertising legends – Rosser Reeves, John Caples, David Ogilvy and many others — have spent their entire lives searching for new ways to cut through the clutter. Every one of these innovations was a response to the facts that the novelty of print advertising was declining. Consumers were becoming increasingly buried under an avalanche of ads … response was dropping … advertisers’ return on investment was plummeting … and their cost of sales was soaring.

Today, web-based marketers are in the same boat. The internet is finally being recognized for what it really has been all along: A medium similar in many ways to TV, radio, print, direct mail and others.

The simple act of thinking of the internet in this new light – and employing proven marketing and sales copy techniques in every web-based promotion is absolutely essential to producing bigger winners more often!

Clayton Makepeace is a working direct response marketing consultant and copywriter who has helped his clients attract more than 3 million new customers … quadruple their profits … and rake in more than $1 billion in direct mail and internet sales.